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CHICAGO — The Office for Intellectual Freedom has launched its new website for Choose Privacy Week, the American Library Association's (ALA) annual event that highlights the importance of personal privacy rights in an era of pervasive surveillance.

The refreshed and redesigned website—now found at its new URL, www.chooseprivacyweek.org—offers ALA members, librarians, and the public an improved and more interactive user experience with better access to Choose Privacy Week news, activities, resources, and information.

Choose Privacy Week takes place May 1-7.

A new navigation system allows users to more easily find the news updates, videos and resources they have come to rely upon. Voices for Privacy, the site's blog, will continue to provide users with timely news about privacy advocacy and discussions of important privacy issues, while new functionality offers users the opportunity to comment and add content to Choose Privacy Week's online information hub.

Librarians planning Choose Privacy Week activities will find a wealth of resources on the new website, including a free, downloadable PDF edition of the Choose Privacy Week Resource Guide. The Resource Guide contains out-of-the-box activities, events and other suggestions for educating and engaging library users on privacy issues and features several age-specific lesson plans and activities for children and youth.

Also available as "programming in a box" are three Choose Privacy Week documentaries discussing privacy, government surveillance and civil liberties that libraries can use to spark discussion in their communities. "Choose Privacy" features youth, parents, librarians and citizens discussing privacy in a digital age, with commentary by author Neil Gaiman and constitutional law scholar Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago. "Vanishing Liberties: The Rise of State Surveillance in the Digital Age," examines the government's growing use and abuse of surveillance tools to track and spy on immigrant communities and the proposals to adopt these same tools to monitor and track the activities of all Americans. "Data Mining, Government Surveillance, and Civil Liberties" third presentation features Michael German, ACLU senior policy counsel for national security and privacy and former FBI agent. All three presentations are available as streaming High Definition videos.

Other Choose Privacy Week materials, including posters, buttons, and book marks, are available for rush delivery via the ALA Store.

Choose Privacy Week is a national public awareness campaign that seeks to deepen public awareness about personal privacy rights and the need to ensure those rights in an era of pervasive surveillance. Through programming, online education and special events, libraries will offer individuals opportunities to learn, think critically and make more informed choices about their privacy. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom established Choose Privacy Week in 2010 to help libraries work with their communities in navigating these complicated but vital issues. Privacy has long been a cornerstone of library services in America and a right that librarians defend every day.